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Intel

Intel teased its dedicated laptop GPU earlier in October, and it’s now rolling out the technology in earnest. The chip designer has announced that the first laptops using its Iris Xe Max graphics chip are available in some form, including the previously revealed Acer Swift 3X, the ASUS VivoBook Flip TP470 and Dell’s Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1. You can buy the Dell hybrid at Best Buy now in the US, although you’ll have to wait for the Acer and ASUS machines to make their way stateside.

Iris Xe Max is, as you might guess, Intel’s answer to the low-end GPUs you sometimes find in thin-and-light portables. The company promises “great” 1080p gaming for popular titles like Hitman 2 and Metro Exodus (though it won’t compete against systems with beefier GPUs). It’s also smart enough to switch to integrated graphics when they might be more effective — Dota 2 runs slightly faster on the built-in Iris Xe than it does either the Xe Max or NVIDIA’s MX350, Intel claimed.

However, it might be more appealing beyond games. New Deep Link tech lets software split tasks between Intel’s integrated GPU on Tiger Lake-based PCs and the Iris Xe Max, sometimes delivering performance that would normally require a desktop video card. Intel is claiming twice the single-stream video encoding prowess of a GeForce RTX 2080 by early 2021, although we’ll have to see how well that translates in the real world. The Xe Max can devote all its power resources to the CPU for apps that depend more on conventional processing.

You’ll likely see more laptops, but Intel has also teased partnerships to roll out budget desktops using the Intel Xe Max’s underlying architecture (Xe-LP) in the first half of 2021. You should truly gaming-ready desktop GPUs from Intel next year, as well. In that light, Iris Xe Max is really laying groundwork for a more ambitious entry into the graphics space. Whether or not everyday users are receptive is another matter. The GPU market has been notoriously reluctant to accommodate more than two entrants, and Intel is still synonymous with slow graphics for many users.

< < Microsoft may have finally devised a way to get people to stop using Internet Explorer once and for all (via ZDNet). When the company releases the next version of its Edge browser, currently slated to come out sometime in November, Internet Explorer users won’t be able to access some 1,156 websites, including popular destinations like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and ESPN. Instead, they’ll be promoted to go to those websites using Microsoft’s more modern, Chromium-based browser.The list is held on a DLL file Microsoft has been adding to Edge installations over the summer. IE loads the file through a plugin, which then monitors what websites you’re visiting through the browser. When you navigate to one that Microsoft would prefer you not visit through IE, you’ll see the following support page. “You've been redirected to Microsoft Edge where you can continue your browsing uninterrupted,” the company says on the page. “If you come across a site that needs Internet Explorer, you can load that site in Internet Explorer mode without ever leaving Microsoft Edge.”Four years after Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10, you might think the browser is a non-entity. However, like older versions of Android, there’s still a small but sizeable contingent of people who continue to use the software to navigate the internet. According to StatCounter, as of September 2020, IE has a 1.19 percent share of the worldwide browser market. This IE behavior is part of Microsoft’s plan to deprecate the browser finally. As always, IT administrators will have some say in the matter. But short of not having Edge installed on their PC, there’s little way for consumers to avoid the move.

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Microsoft may have finally devised a way to get people to stop using Internet Explorer once and for all (via ZDNet). When the company releases the next version of its Edge browser, currently slated to come out sometime in November, Internet Explorer users won’t be able to access some 1,156 websites, including popular destinations like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and ESPN. Instead, they’ll be promoted to go to those websites using Microsoft’s more modern, Chromium-based browser.

The list is held on a DLL file Microsoft has been adding to Edge installations over the summer. IE loads the file through a plugin, which then monitors what websites you’re visiting through the browser. When you navigate to one that Microsoft would prefer you not visit through IE, you’ll see the following support page. “You've been redirected to Microsoft Edge where you can continue your browsing uninterrupted,” the company says on the page. “If you come across a site that needs Internet Explorer, you can load that site in Internet Explorer mode without ever leaving Microsoft Edge.”

Four years after Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10, you might think the browser is a non-entity. However, like older versions of Android, there’s still a small but sizeable contingent of people who continue to use the software to navigate the internet. According to StatCounter, as of September 2020, IE has a 1.19 percent share of the worldwide browser market. This IE behavior is part of Microsoft’s plan to deprecate the browser finally. As always, IT administrators will have some say in the matter. But short of not having Edge installed on their PC, there’s little way for consumers to avoid the move.

 

< < Engadget / Ei ItoMicrosoft’s latest Flight Simulator entry doesn’t do anything small. It’s a title that comes on 10 DVDs and allows you to explore the world in almost its entirety. It turns out that scale even extends to its accidental inclusions. Flight Simulator users recently found an unusual landmark: a 212-story monolith towering over an otherwise nondescript suburb in Melbourne, Australia. Engadget / Ei ItoAfter some sleuthing, the title’s community found what had caused the tower to appear in Flight Simulator. When developer Asobo Studio built its detailed recreation of the globe, they pulled data from OpenStreetMap, a free map of the world to which anyone can contribute. About a year ago, a user named “nathanwright120” added a tag that said this one building in Melbourne had 212 floors instead of two. Based on their other contributions, it appears the edit was a simple typo, not them trying to mislead anyone. The error was later corrected by another OpenStreetMap contributor, but not before it made its way into Flight Simulator. Engadget / Ei ItoWe’ve reached out to Microsoft to find out if the company plans to remove the building from Flight Simulator, and we’ll update this article when we hear back. Based on the title’s dedication to realism, there’s a good chance it’s not long for this world. So if you own a copy of Flight Simulator, board your favorite plane and visit it before it’s gone for good.

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Engadget / Ei Ito

Microsoft’s latest Flight Simulator entry doesn’t do anything small. It’s a title that comes on 10 DVDs and allows you to explore the world in almost its entirety. It turns out that scale even extends to its accidental inclusions. Flight Simulator users recently found an unusual landmark: a 212-story monolith towering over an otherwise nondescript suburb in Melbourne, Australia. 

Engadget / Ei Ito

After some sleuthing, the title’s community found what had caused the tower to appear in Flight Simulator. When developer Asobo Studio built its detailed recreation of the globe, they pulled data from OpenStreetMap, a free map of the world to which anyone can contribute. About a year ago, a user named “nathanwright120” added a tag that said this one building in Melbourne had 212 floors instead of two. Based on their other contributions, it appears the edit was a simple typo, not them trying to mislead anyone.  The error was later corrected by another OpenStreetMap contributor, but not before it made its way into Flight Simulator. 

Engadget / Ei Ito

We’ve reached out to Microsoft to find out if the company plans to remove the building from Flight Simulator, and we’ll update this article when we hear back. Based on the title’s dedication to realism, there’s a good chance it’s not long for this world. So if you own a copy of Flight Simulator, board your favorite plane and visit it before it’s gone for good.  

< <Many expect Apple to announce a transition to ARM-based processors in Macs at WWDC 2020, but now it might be clearer just what systems will usher in that new era. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a generally good track record of supply chain-based predictions, claims in an investor note that the first ARM-based Macs will be a new version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro and a 24-inch version of a previously rumored iMac redesign. He goes so far as to suggest these Macs will show up in the fall, or earlier than the 2021 time frame from a Bloomberg rumor, although he warns the releases could slip to the first quarter of 2021.Kuo also said that the new Macs could be between 50 percent to 100 percent faster than their Intel-based counterparts, although he didn’t provide specifics. The Bloomberg story had the first ARM machine packing a 12-core processor.The analyst believed there would be a brand new MacBook design arriving in the middle of 2021, although he didn’t say whether or not that would be the purported 12-inch ARM-based MacBook.There’s no guarantee things will pan out as Kuo described, even if he’s completely accurate. The COVID-19 pandemic and development hitches could delay a release despite Apple’s best intentions. A debut with smaller iMacs and MacBook Pros wouldn’t be surprising, mind you. ARM tends to fare best in mobile devices and other low-power hardware, and there might not be as many expectations around legacy support as there will be for higher-end systems. This also gives Apple more time to refine its ARM technology for premium Macs and, if necessary, to tweak designs based on real-world feedback.

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Many expect Apple to announce a transition to ARM-based processors in Macs at WWDC 2020, but now it might be clearer just what systems will usher in that new era. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a generally good track record of supply chain-based predictions, claims in an investor note that the first ARM-based Macs will be a new version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro and a 24-inch version of a previously rumored iMac redesign. He goes so far as to suggest these Macs will show up in the fall, or earlier than the 2021 time frame from a Bloomberg rumor, although he warns the releases could slip to the first quarter of 2021.

Kuo also said that the new Macs could be between 50 percent to 100 percent faster than their Intel-based counterparts, although he didn’t provide specifics. The Bloomberg story had the first ARM machine packing a 12-core processor.

The analyst believed there would be a brand new MacBook design arriving in the middle of 2021, although he didn’t say whether or not that would be the purported 12-inch ARM-based MacBook.

There’s no guarantee things will pan out as Kuo described, even if he’s completely accurate. The COVID-19 pandemic and development hitches could delay a release despite Apple’s best intentions. A debut with smaller iMacs and MacBook Pros wouldn’t be surprising, mind you. ARM tends to fare best in mobile devices and other low-power hardware, and there might not be as many expectations around legacy support as there will be for higher-end systems. This also gives Apple more time to refine its ARM technology for premium Macs and, if necessary, to tweak designs based on real-world feedback.